Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia's government lowered the death toll for the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami as relief workers on Sumatra Island opened the road on the western coast to help aid reach areas worst hit in the disaster.

The death toll on Indonesia's Sumatra island was revised down to 95,450, Joko Wiranto, an official at the National Information Agency in Jakarta handling the disaster data, said. An official in the Social Welfare Ministry on Jan. 7 said the figure was 113,000. The earlier figure was incorrectly tallied, Joko said.

Sumatra's Aceh province took the full brunt of the earthquake and tsunami which swept across the Indian Ocean, killing tens of thousands in Thailand, Sri Lanka and as far way as Somalia in Afria. Aid is starting to get to areas that were unreachable after aid workers opened the road on the western coast of Sumatra, adjacent to the epicenter of the earthquake.

``We're closing in on the spots we've not reached before, particularly on the western coast of Sumatra,'' Kevin Kennedy, head of the humanitarian emergency division of the UN's relief operation, said yesterday according to the UN. The aid operation has received ``great help from the foreign military utilizing their helicopters.''

The death toll may go as high as 200,000, Kennedy said before Indonesia revised its toll. As many as 37,000 people died in Sri Lanka, he said. More than 500,000 people were injured and 5 million people are in need of assistance, the UN said.

Pledging Money

At least 18,000 people are still missing in tsunami-affected areas, according to the Atlanta-based CARE group.

The World Food Program has partnered with other aid groups to distribute food and supplies, the organization said in an e-mailed statement late last night.

It has set up four field offices in Banda Aceh, Aceh Besar, Meulaboh and Singkil to coordinate distribution of aid with Mercy Corps International, CARE, World Vision and Save the Children, all non-government organizations, it said.

The WFP has identified 160,000 more refugees displaced by the tragedy in coastal towns in north Sumatra. This is on top of about 130,000 that are already receiving WFP food aid, it said.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered the military to clean up the debris from the natural disaster within two weeks to facilitate the recovery, the Jakarta Post newspaper said. Indonesia is seeking a delay in debt repayments to rich countries of about $2.15 billion in order to divert funds to the rebuilding of Aceh.

Reaching People

There have been more than 100 aftershocks in the area off the Sumatra coast and in the Indian Ocean near Nicobar and Andaman islands since Dec. 26, hampering attempts to resettle refugees.

The World Health Organization will undertake a region-wide health assessment starting today and ministers from 30 nations will meet in Geneva to assess pledges of money that have been received and plan their disbursement.

The WHO said there have been no reports of epidemic outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever.

``The threat is there, but the staff hasn't seen too much yet,'' Eric Block, a spokesman for Mercy Corps, said yesterday by telephone from the group's headquarters in Portland, Oregon. ``They're focusing a lot of their work on distributing things like hygiene kits and water sanitation-- chlorine tablets and fresh water.''

CARE said it was working to distribute food and water purification kits in Aceh, the capital of Sumatra.

``There are still many remote parts of Aceh that haven't been reached,'' Carsten Voelz, CARE emergency response team leader in Aceh, said in a statement. ``Other than what we've seen from aerial photos, there's very little known about who survived, what is left and the general conditions.''

In Sri Lanka, 80,000 people along the tsunami-hit eastern coast are receiving sanitation kits and fresh food, CARE said, as well as building temporary shelters and pit latrines.

Block said the Mercy Corps was focusing on the town of Putville, where 2,000 homes were destroyed. Now, more than 3,000 people are living in 12 ``makeshift'' shelters, he said.

The Mercy Corps started a ``cash for work'' program there, as well as in Banda Aceh paying people to assist in the cleanup work and thereby helping to invigorate the local economy, Block said.

Mercy Corps may hire 1,000 people in Banda Aceh by the end of the month, Block said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Claire Leow in Jakarta cleow@bloomberg.net; Todd Zeranski in New York at tzeranski@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 10, 2005 22:57 EST